Verdict / The real value of this DVD burner is in the completeness of its toolset. You can use this program for anything DVD related.

Editor’s Note: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) forbids circumventing copy encryptions contained on commercial discs. The DMCA makes no exceptions for circumventing these encryptions for personal use. Top Ten Reviews does not endorse piracy or any other illegal activity.

In our review of the best DVD burner software, 123 Copy DVD Gold earned the Top Ten Reviews Bronze Award. It has a wide array of burning tools that allow you to make a copy of a DVD or convert its contents to video files for your smartphone or tablet. You can also use it to build a new DVD from scratch and burn it onto a blank disc. Nearly anything you want to do with a DVD, this program has a tool for.

Copy Tools

The DVD copying tools are under the Video tab in the program's interface. Here you'll find the ability to burn an exact copy of you DVD to a new disc. If you're burning to a dual-layered blank disc (DVD-9), it takes about an hour and a half to complete the process. If you're compressing your movie to fit onto a smaller-capacity disc, you'll have a new copy in about 30 minutes. This is not the easiest program we reviewed, but nearly anyone can learn to use its tools proficiently.

Almost all retail DVDs are copy-protected by anti-piracy encryptions. Before you can use this software to burn from these discs, you need to download and install a decryption plugin that bypasses these encryptions. The software makes the plugin easy to find, and installation only takes a few seconds. After it's installed, you can burn copies of all the DVDs you own.

This program also allows you to save a DVD's ISO file to your computer. An ISO file is a DVD blueprint that behaves like a virtual disc on your hard drive. You can use it to watch your DVD movie without the physical disc. You can also use it to make future copies of a DVD long after the original has been lost, scratched or thrown away. If you want to back up your DVD library digitally, this is the way to do it.

Output

This software gives you the option to make both identical and compressed copies of your DVD movies. If you want to make an exact copy with no quality loss, you need to burn to a DVD-9. If you use the lower-capacity DVD-5 blank discs, the software must compress the ISO file to take up less space. This option reduces the quality of the video on the new DVD. When we viewed a compressed copy of our test disc, we noticed pixelation and compression artifact in the movie. It wasn't terrible, but it would distract from the film when viewed on a large television.

Customization

Fortunately, this software gives you a way to avoid the quality loss caused by compression. The movie-only burning option just copies the feature presentation of a DVD and discards bonus features and other content. Most movies fit onto a DVD-5 with little to no compression. In case you want to make a disc of some or all of a DVD's special features, this software allows you to pick exactly which tracks you want to burn.

Making physical copies of DVDs is only one part of this software's tool array. You can also use this software to convert your movies into video files that are optimized for playback on your smartphone or gaming system. You can also build new DVDs from scratch, make data discs and burn music CDs. This program has tools for pretty much anything you can do with a DVD.

Help & Support

This software's website offers multiple options for if you have a problem with your software or need customer support. Most common questions about how to use the software are answered by articles in the site's knowledgebase. You can also watch video tutorials if you want step-by-step directions along with tips of how to best use the program. If you have an issue that requires a customer service specialist, you can contact the company by either submitting an email help ticket or logging into its live chat service for immediate help.

Summary

123 Copy DVD Gold is a handy DVD burning tool box that allows you to copy, customize, convert, archive and build new discs. It has some compression quality issues, but they're overshadowed by the breadth of the software's toolset.